Giving the “tsar-liberator” his due

Russia abolished serfdom 150 years ago, but many people fail to appreciate the bold step taken by Tsar Alexander II.

On Feb. 19, 1861 (Mar. 3 according to the
calendar used today) 1861, Russia abolished serfdom, a system that had forced
peasants to work for a feudal lord while denying them the right to work for anyone
else or of obtaining land for their own use.

The changes that came about during the peasant reform
were certainly not forced upon Russia. Indeed, the country could not and would
not live by the rules of the past any longer. However, nothing at the time
prevented Tsar Alexander II from ruling the old way, in the image of his uncle
and his father, the emperors Alexander I and Nikolas I. He could very well have
kept the emancipation of the serfs progressing at a snail’s pace by organizing
an endless series of commissions to examine the peasant issue, then reading
their reports before filing them in a drawer to wait for better days. Russia’s
defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1856 against a coalition made up of the
British, French, Ottoman Empires and the Kingdom of Sardinia was certainly
humiliating, but not necessarily a death blow since there was no catastrophic
loss of territory. Yet after this event, Alexander and his entourage saw more
clearly that maintaining the old order would cause Russia’s developmental lag behind
other nations to evolve into an irreversible catastrophe.

The tsar and his advisors knew that
delaying reforms or major changes was impossible, so disregarding the reticence
of the majority of landowners who had no desire to put an end to their supply
of free labor and their established power, they set to work and began the
process of dividing up lands and emancipating the serfs.

It is possible to criticize Alexander for his
lack of preparation and haste in implementing serf reform. Or, like Soviet
historians, accuse him of “pillaging” (plots of land were reduced by an average
of 20 percent in the country). On the other hand, it’s also this tsar who rejected
the Baltic model (1818-1819) of serf emancipation, one that gave freedom without
land. Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the tsar and Nikolai Milyutin all insisted
the peasants be landowners.

When the reforms were announced to the serfs,
many thought the authorities were simply concealing their true motives and
sincerely believed that all lands would eventually revert back to their
ownership. However, there was no massive uprising and the threat of a Pugachev-style
peasant revolt never materialized, although reactionaries and conservatives
used this to scare the population.

The emancipation of the serfs, it is important to remember, was the
first step in bringing Russia’s economic and social institutions in line with the
most developed countries. The judicial reforms of 1864 came on the heels of serf
emancipation, creating a European-caliber constitution with juries and establishing
the tsar’s subjects as equal under the law (with some exceptions, of course),
regardless of title or property. This was quickly followed by the reform of provincial
assemblies (the zemstvo) of 1870,
creating quality local administrations and, finally, the reform in the military
that cancelled the despised enlistment and forbade corporal punishment.

In 1877-1878, Russia was not content with simply liberating Bulgaria
from Turkish domination. A group of Russian officials and generals drafted one
of that era’s most democratic constitutions for their “sister nation.” It is
possible that in doing so, the tsar and his entourage were keen to show other
leaders that the Slavic peoples were able to live in constitutional monarchies.

Today, Alexander II can rightly assume his title of “liberator.” Unlike
Bulgaria, however, which features a “tsar liberator” street in nearly every big
city, his historical role has been undervalued in Russia, even during the
Soviet era.

Unfortunately, Alexander II was not successful in completing his social
and political reforms: on Mar. 1, 1881 (Mar. 13 in the new calendar), he was
killed by members of the People’s Will movement. There had been other attempts
on Alexander’s life, but they had not pushed him to isolate himself from his
subjects. Although it may be fruitless to second-guess history, it is possible
that, without Ignacy Hryniewiecki’s bomb, we would be living in a different
country.

This article is abriged from a
longer text first published in Vedomosti.